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The wind is bitterly chill and Winter’s head spins. Her eyes are heavy and she is exhausted, but she brushes the snow from the ice and prepares the circle. She carefully sprinkles dirt from the shore in a circle, then piles dried seaweed and shiny sea stones just inside the lines.
The frozen over lake is empty around her, the far shore barely visible through the swirling snow. The clouds above are darkening as dusk approached and a solid, bone stiffening cold descends.
Winter grabs the pickaxe borrowed from Ned’s storeroom in her jaws and rears back to swing at the circled ice.
This was it.
Crack!
The pickaxe bites into the lake ice, sending shards flying, but not puncturing completely through. She tears it from ice and swings again. The dark lake water is just visible and then with a third violent swing it bubbles through the slushy ice.
Winter sets about widening the hold, alternating using the pickaxe and a paw. Once, when snapping off a shard, the cunning edge bitex into her pads and blood smears across the side of the ice.
She licks her paw clean and stuffs it into the snow to numb the pain.
It takes nearly an hour of work to widen the hole to about shoulder width and by that time twilight has hit. Winter digs a small pocket knife from her pack and freezes beside the hole
She could go back. Maybe this wasn’t it.
But then her lip curls in a disgusted snarl and she drops the knife into the black, black, black water.
"Qalupalik! Qalupalik! Qalupalik!”
Her voice is venomous and hot in the numbing air, her eyes glint a bright feverish blue and she slams a paw to the ice.
There is silence. Horribly, terribly quiet. It fills her ears and growl rises in her throat to combat it.
An enormous black shape slides beneath the ice, a subtle shadow in the near darkness. The lake water swirls and a skeletally thin hand emerges to caress the blood on the side of the hole. Its nails are long and gnarled, green algae crusting the surfaces.
The hand retreats and the water is still.
Winter realizes she is shaking, her head buzzing, her ears flat to her head. She grits her teeth and snarls out to the cold, black water.
“Qalupalik, show yourself.”
Night overtakes twilight. It is unnaturally cold, so much the very air seems to freeze.
It is thin like a long dead corpse, bones jutting out starkly against green skin. broad shoulders skim the edges of the ice, a long serpentine body plunging into the lake.
Qalupalik’s eyes were like stones, flat and expressionless. It tilts its head at her and runs a finger across the blood again.
Winter sucks cold air into her lungs and stares it down.
"Release him.”
It is unfazed at her tone and simply burbles, “just a simple man, not important to anyone.”
“Why do you want it back? It is nothing, to no one.” The wind hisses down and it lifts its flat face to the cold.
Her claws grate at the ice beneath her feet, and she can barely push aside the fury boiling in her lungs. Her breath rolls out in a cloud as she snarls down at the corpse like Qalupalik.
“He is mine, he is everything to me.” She stalks stiff legged to the edge of the circle and sneers. “I will tear those spidery limbs from your body and wrench him from you as you wrinkle and die.”
It simply cocks its head go one side and the blank, marble eyes just watch. It is terribly still for a long minute, before bringing a bedraggled, sopping wet scarf up from the water.
"He begs.” It murmurs, eyes sliding to the scarf. “I leave him to sink in the lake.”
The scarf drops back down. Winter can’t hear it hit the water through the roar in her ears, she is as tense as a snake poised to bite, but uncertainty is wiggling deep in her heart.
In the back of her head, her thoughts whisper that she’s getting nowhere. To leap at the monster. To leave the circle. To drop through the ice. To give up.
Her shoulders shake. Qalupalik burbles smugly and for the first time, expression crosses it’s face. It is an ugly, cruel smile with sharp, black and broken teeth.
"You are nothing. He is nothing. To no one, not even the trees or -”
“Winter!”
It comes on the wind, faint and breathless. But then it comes again, nearer. Winter spins and there is a faint light, warm yellow and blue, growing closer.
The water swirls as Qalupalik begins to duck beneath it and she rounds on it, the light behind her illuminating her silhouette.
“I summoned you and I didn’t say you could leave, Qalupalik!"
There! A glint of fear in it’s dead eyes.
Paws skitter to a stop beside her and she sees Feverfew, windblown and wild eyed. He glances up at her and draws a breath to speak when it lunges from the water at him.
He is too shocked to move and it is impossibly fast.
Winter catches only the barest of glimpses of a flaming beast, gold and light and magnificent; before she suddenly fills with burning energy and flies at Qalupalik.
She hits it like an avalanche and they both tumble away from Fever.
It is slimy and slick, but it’s skin seems to singe and char in the brilliant light. Her jaws snap shut on one bony arm, grating and crunching against bone. It shrieks and rakes ice down her face. She lets go with a roar and snaps at the distended, tender belly, missing and lunging again.
Her teeth connect and she shakes it till it jerks free and huddles on the ice, pale and thick blood slowly pooling beneath it.
She stands, burning fire filling her, glowing and tasting energy, blood and victory.
"Release him."

It hisses through shivering jaws, lip curling. "Or what?”
Winter roars, light blooming from her body and melting the snow around her. It shrieks and cowers, then flees for the water and slips into the black lake.
The light fades, partially. She finds a great shining beast beside her, stars sprinkling his coat and flames in his eyes. He smiles gently down at her and pads to the hole and dips his head as if to taste it.
But then he pulls a sad looking figure from the water.
It is Ned
There is a barely contained, happy beyond anything shriek from Fever and Winter feels exhaustion and relief flood her limbs.
His hair is plastered to his skul, skin deathly white, but he is breathing. The beast lays him down beside Winter and Fever, the touch seeming to fill everyone with warmth.
And then the beast is gone.
But the snow has stopped, stars can be seen through the clouds and a curious, friendly warmth lingers.
They curl around Ned, laughing and smiling and crying happy tears and Winter feels the knot in her heart loosen.
It is good. All is well.